An Answer to the Call
by BuckeyeBelle
Summary: A Halloween party yields some surprising results for Judy Witwicky.


[Author's Note: On the "Archive of Our Own" I found an essay on the death and rebirth of Starscream in G1, written by Grayseeker. This sparked an intense discussion with my co-writer, who is an experienced astrologer. (You can find the essay by searching AO3 for "Starscream Astrology.") I wondered if the charts for Optimus Prime's death and rebirth might be informative. Once we sorted out where the movie had first been shown, and when, in that movie, Optimus' spark kicked back to life, my co-writer cast that chart. It's discussed below. Our socks were knocked off by it, and so it has spawned this story. This tale is set in the Swords and Jewels series.

Transformers belongs to Hasbro and whoever they have allowed the rights to it, which certainly doesn't include me. No money has been made from this fanfic and no copyright infringement is intended. All I own are my OCs.

WARNINGS: This story contains religious and spiritual discussion drawn from various religious paths both real and fictional. Those who wish not to be exposed to religions other than their own should turn back now.

"Normal speech"

::Silent speech (Internal radio or through a bond)::

Scene Break: -Sidhe Chronicles-

Thanks to my beta and co-author, Vivienne Grainger. /AN]

Sarah Lennox put her hands on her hips and surveyed the atrium of Cliff House. Then she set down on the floor the large shoulder bag she'd come in with, and delved in it. Sketch of the decorations, check; some small sandwiches for the humans, check; oil cakes for the bots, check. Human side of the snack table _there_ and the bots' side _here_. Her sketchbook had a cover which used a tab-and-slot arrangement to become an easel. Sarah placed Sunstreaker's drawing of what they were to do where everyone could see it.

The human door into the atrium opened, and closed again. Her helpers,she hoped.

Judy Witwicky was followed by her daughter-in-law. Carly wasn't carrying Danny in her arms, though, and Sarah experienced a mild disappointment. She smothered it, and smiled widely at them. "Welcome! I'm glad you're here. Where's Danny?"

"Oh, with the other men of the family. Bee took them all shopping."

"They _shop_?"

"They have instructions and a list," Judy said firmly.

Carly added, "Though it's anyone's guess whether they come home with something that was on the list, or even distantly related to anything on it."

"I once asked Will to pick up some pickles while he was out, and he came home with a pound of buttercream chocolates."

"Did it cause a fight?" Carly asked curiously.

"I find it difficult to pick a fight when a man has a pound of chocolate buttercreams in tow."

They laughed. Carly set down the second batch of Bee's favorite oil cakes she had made (Bee had eaten the first), and Judy added beautifully-decorated cupcakes and a bottle of "punch additive" that was for adults only to the human snacks side.

The door opened and closed again, and Diarwen arrived with the punch. More accurately, she carried a punch bowl with a bag of ice in it, and a shoulder bag with bottles of ingredients. This day she had donned a long, loose dress that reminded one of a Renaissance Faire. Usually, off-duty she looked a little like a tomboy Maid Marian: tunic, leggings, and boots, silver hair in a neat braid; on-duty she wore BDUs and made a bun of the braid.

Judy said, "Pineapple and mango juices? That will be wonderful."

"Aye, I hope you'll find it so," Diarwen said with a grin. "And I see someone has brought the extra kick it might need."

Sarah picked up one of the bottles and read the label. "Does organic food really taste better?" she said. "I've been thinking of moving that way."

"I should, if I were you," Diarwen said, pouring both bottles into the bowl. She drew two smaller bowls from her bag and filled one with ice. The other she took to the sink, washed both outside and inside, and filled it, too, with ice; then she lowered it into the punch bowl. Voila! No diluted punch. "Most people think it does taste better, and evidence points toward fewer medical issues in adulthood for children fed that way while they grow."

Sarah began to wonder how much of her pantry she would have to throw out, but Diarwen continued, "Let me send you information on what is most urgent to eat organically, Sarah - spinach and chicken are good places to start, though. And apples! Even Red Delicious have a better flavor when they are organic."

Judy said, "Diarwen, I wanted to talk to you about something. I've been getting hot flashes lately, about the same time every day. It's been ten years since the last one, but I can't get in to see my doctor for another two months. Have you any herbal suggestions that might help?"

"Well, first," the Sidhe said, "Are you taking therapeutic doses of turmeric? I remember you asked me about it some weeks back."

Judy's brows jumped up. "Yes, I am. What could that have to do with it?"

"Some herbs," the tall Sidhe said, looking at Sunstreaker's drawing, "concentrate estrogen and progesterone, and turmeric is among them. So is thyme, for that matter.-Why did you begin taking turmeric?"

"Puffy old-lady ankles," Judy said promptly.

"If the turmeric is causing the hot flashes, you might do better to take a morning walk every day," Diarwen said. "Exercise moves the lymph around, and that is what is collecting in your ankles."

"Are those things true of your own people as well as humans?" Sarah asked.

"We had no knowledge of turmeric, as it is an Asian spice. We noted the presence of swelling, but we had no knowledge of lymph, either. That is all information I have acquired about human herbalism."

"Why do you study that? Human herbalism, I mean?"

The SIdhe shrugged. "One seeks to be of use in the community in which one finds oneself.".

The door banged again, and Mikaela came in next with an assortment of veggies and dip. The Sisters arrived on her heels, with bot-snacks; Chromia made a brief detour to Optimus' office, now relocated to Cliff House with all the other offices, to exchange greetings.

Betony, in town that week while Jamie's truck was overhauled, arrived with a large plate of cheese and crackers: all organic.

Decorating began by skirting the tables with black ruffles and topping them with orange tablecloths. That was simple and easily accomplished, but once the task was complete, an immediate problem arose. The bot-weight stepladder promised to Sarah had not been placed in the closet to which she had been given access. Or someone had moved it. Either way, it was not available when needed.

Barricade and Sideswipe came out of the twins' quarters, laughing together. Barricade saw Chromia and swiftly subspaced something that looked remarkably like a bottle of high-grade, which did not stop Chromia from sending ::You two sober? You have to be anywhere?::

A short silence ensued, and then Sides, glancing first at Barricade, sent ::Yes and no, in that order.::

"Get your afts down here, you tall bots," Chromia said aloud. "You're drafted."

They brightened up a bit when they saw the oil cakes and rubidium sticks. They ate a cake each and licked their digits clean while Sarah gave them instructions.

Then Barricade walked to the central supporting pier in the atrium, and held out a hand. Sides stepped into it, and Barricade lifted the skater up to shoulder-height, grasping his ankles once Sides' skates were firmly (if painfully) across his shoulders.

The garlands were strings of orange moons separated by black witches' hats. Sides fastened eight ends of fifty-foot garlands to the central post.

Problems anew: they weren't long enough.

Barricade grumbled, but again hoisted Sides, who removed every other garland. The humans fastened them to the ends of the four remaining garlands, and the Sisters taped the free ends to the railing of the ramp ascending to the top floor.

After that, the two mechs sat on the floor in a corner and ate a few rubidium sticks while watching other people work hard, which is always a pleasant occupation.

Judy and Carly were one of the two-person teams assigned to tape witches and ghosts and black cats (fortunately, all were of light cardboard) to the walls at irregular intervals . Judy, noting the presence of moons in the garlands, said about the third witch in, "You know, I've been studying astrology lately."

"Have you?" said Carly, politely interested. "A fascinating subject, I'm sure."

"Very absorbing," Judy replied, tearing off a sizeable piece of double-sided tape and handing it to her. "Is that the last one?"

"No," said Carly, "one more." She moved along to the next part of the wall and got to work.

Once the last piece of tape was in place, Judy pulled her Windows tablet out of her purse and said brightly, "What's your date, place, and time of birth?"

"I don't know the time," Carly said, hoping, if the truth be told, that Judy would be unable to perform her wizardry without it.

"Oh, I might be able to make a guess based on your appearance," Judy said. "It's called 'rectifying a chart.' So, date and time, please?"'

Carly gave in, and coughed up her data.

"You're probably a Taurus rising," Judy said, not looking up from her busy thumbs.

"Why do you think so, Judy?"

"Because Tauruses are pretty," Judy said absentmindedly, "and kind."

Carly went a rather becoming shade of pink. Judy gave her a rundown of her chart, which seemed surprisingly accurate to Carly. She thanked her mother-in-law, and went to help Sarah Lennox.

Betony Lennox asked her what program she was using, and Judy told her; they happily chatted astrology to one another while the work went on. Others were drawn into the conversation, and Judy did a few more charts. Then Sarah Lennox asked her for two: her daughters, Annabelle and Amaranth.

Judy, glancing at Betony (the more experienced practitioner of the two), told her that a child's chart could not say definitely that a person was this or that; it could point out tendencies, but the child's own maturation would affect those, open some doors wider and close others. It might point out medical problems, but that, Judy explained carefully, was not something she'd studied, and therefore couldn't comment on, probably wouldn't see. Sarah said, "Understood."

Annabelle's chart indicated that she was very physically active (Gemini rising), upbeat, and assertive when needful. A chip, in fact, off Will Lennox' block: ruler of the tenth in the same sign and degree as the Sun. Sarah nodded.

Judy thumbed Amaranth's information into her tablet, Betony looking over her shoulder, and then both women looked at one another. Without comment Judy showed Sarah the chart.

Will Lennox' wife said, "Well, it's a lovely design, but what does it mean?"

"Well, Amaranth is a Scorpio, which you probably know already. Her Sun and Mercury are both trine the Ascendant, though they're too far apart to be joined together - the Sun and Mercury, I mean. That means she's very, very smart, but likely you knew that already too. Uranus and Pluto are both involved with her … the part of the horoscope that indicates your place of birth and first family home. It was very unusual, but perhaps not quite stable. That Uranus is also trine her Ascendant and rules the fourth house, so there may be something unusual about her parents. Her Sun is very powerful in this chart, so the little girl has quite a will. Formidable, actually."

"Yes," Sarah said simply. "I've always been glad we didn't get her while she was in her terrible twos."

Flareup asked Sarah, "So it's accurate?"

"Yes, I think so," Sarah said; but someone else needed help, and she excused herself.

Flareup said, "Can you do my chart?"

Judy became goggle-eyed, which Carly knew meant she was flummoxed; but Carly was busy with assembly of the punch fountain for the kids. Judy attempted to explain that she had no reference works for Cybertron, but couldn't explain why she couldn't use Earth's.

Betony came to her rescue, explaining that astrology is Earth-based. If they could find out where Cybertron was when Flareup was sparked, they would need the charts of planetary influence for that place and time, _and_ they would need to know how those were interpreted locally. So if Flareup were sparked outside a solar system, they'd have nothing to work with, and if she were sparked inside one, they'd have no idea what the locals' interpretations of planetary positions were.

Judy said, "Well, couldn't we do a landing chart for Flareup? That happened on Earth."

Betony smiled. "We absolutely could."

Flareup calculated date, time, and place (Mission City, inside the fence!) where she had first set ped on Earth, and gave Judy the information.

Betony looked at the chart and burst out laughing. "You were _born_ to gossip!" she said.

Judy looked at the chart. "Despite that, or maybe because of it, you're genuinely interested in others. You like people until they give you a strong reason not to. Even then, you're forgiving. You see people as they are, not as they were."

Flareup looked at Barricade, sitting in his corner with Sides, and smiled. "Thanks, Judy, Betony."

Sarah Lennox rang a small bell. "Break time!" she said. "The heavy-duty snacks are here."

Punch, with or without a punch of its own, and cheese (really good cheese, Sarah noted; yes, the Lennoxes were _definitely_ going organic) and crackers for the humans; Barricade offered a nip of his stash that even Chromia accepted. She unsubspaced a second plate of oil cakes which were well-received if short-lived.

Judy said, "Diarwen, what's your sign? Do you know?"

"Unfortunately, Judy, astrology is not part of my culture. It is Middle Eastern in origin, and my culture is located firmly in Europe. As well, I am unsure precisely where on a modern map my birthplace would be located, as I know only that my parents' camp at the time was within sight of the Matterhorn. That is a rather large area of modern day Austria and Italy. I also cannot place my time of birth, or even the exact date. I know only that I was born not long before Lammas, but I do not know if that would have been late July then as it is now."

Betony said, "If we could ever get the place and date, it would be do-able, but it would take a lot of work, including drawing up an ephemeris."

"Eff-em-err-iss? What's that when it's at home?" Carly asked.

"A table of planetary motion. Usually they have the planets in columns, and the days in rows."

"Why would you need that?"

The two astrologers exchanged glances. Then Betony said, "Because the planets never stop moving, and very few people are born at the moment the ephemeris uses. It's possible to"-she hesitated; "average" wasn't the right word, but it would have to do-"to average the positions of one day and the next to get precise planetary positions for the exact moment of birth using an ephemeris. Until computers were in wide use, you needed an ephemeris to cast a chart." SHe smiled. "Also pencil, paper, and eraser!"

Sarah Lennox said, "If anyone could derive that information and put it into a table, it would be Raf Esquivel."

"Yes, that he could!" Diarwen smiled, as she always did at the mention of her pupil.

Betony said to her teacher, "If I were to rectify your chart-that is, reconstruct it based on what I know about you now-I'd speculate that you're probably a late Cancer, with good aspects between the Sun or Moon and Jupiter, and Mercury and Venus either joined together in Gemini or sextile, meaning they work well together, likely Taurus to Cancer."

"And why do you think that?" said Diarwen, her head on one side and a cup of spiked punch in her hand.

"Cancers make exceptionally good warriors when their home or life, or someone else's, is threatened."

"Save for my chivalric responsibilities to my Queen, I have never picked up a sword for any other reason," Diarwen said quietly.

"Yes, that's true," Betony said. "Also I think you have some aspect between Mercury and Venus because you have such a good singing voice, and also because you make good choices when you write lyrics. Those two planets might be in Gemini; you need to use your hands in making music, and Gemini rules the hands. If not I think the sextile, an aspect giving ease, would be between Taurus, a sign of singers, and Cancer, a sign which respects tradition nearly as strongly as Capricorn does."

Diarwen was too experienced to be embarrassed by this, though the bots could tell that her fields were slightly roiled. She said only, "And Jupiter?"

Betony blushed. "Good aspects between the Lights, the Sun and Moon, and Jupiter are present in the charts of most consorts of royalty."

Diarwen suppressed a snort of laughter. "'Tis a role I could never have forseen for myself, but fair enough."

Flareup said, "The Tiny Trine were hatched on Earth, weren't they, Cade?"

"Near orbit, if that counts," he grunted, sounding a bit skeptical of the whole thing. Even so, he calculated the seekerlets' place of birth from his files of Nemesis' orbital path when they emerged from their gestation chambers.

Judy asked, "Is their date of birth the moment of-" she hesitated- "laying?"

Chromia explained, "We say 'separation.'"

"Thanks, Chromia-the separation, or the hatching, of the eggs? Traditionally we've used the first breath, but even that's confused now. A preemie can be saved before it's able to breathe on its own."

Chromia said, "I'm not certain when we would be technically 'born' for the purpose of this chart."

Flareup said, "A frame becomes a mech or femme as soon as the spark chamber closes and the systems come online."

Cade nodded. "For forged mecha like us, that's true, 'cause we came from the All-Spark. Seekers have sparks and their systems are online inside the egg, but they're running at a very basic level and they aren't able to survive without help. I learned from the Command Trine and from Borealis that in the Seeker tradition, a newspark becomes a hatchling as soon as it consumes its shell. Or maybe," said the ex-Decepticon, "from Milestrina. Can't remember. But our littles developed in artificial gestation chambers. Long story short, the command trine couldn't let anybody know they'd created-Megatron didn't allow it. So Starscream and his trinemates hid them among a bunch of new protoforms that were being constructed onboard Nemesis." He shook off dark memories surrounding the Fallen. "So in their case you would have to say their time of 'birth' was when they came online outside the chamber, right?"

The Sisters held a brief comms conference, then Chromia said, "I can't think of any other way to calculate it. Damn Megatron, that's just _wrong_ for little Seekers."

Barricade nodded. "Doesn't seem to have hurt them any, but I agree with you, it's wrong. When you see how Borealis takes care of hers and talks to them in the egg? _That's_ how it's supposed to be."

Judy tapped her tablet screen. "Here's Skimmer's chart. Oh, look at Sun-Jupiter and Sun-Saturn."

Betony looked and said, "He _is_ royalty, all right."

Chromia said, "Amazing that these charts show that."

"They can surprise you sometimes."

Judy finished the other charts of the Trine. "Oh, my, yes. Skysong's accident shows up in all three charts as a transit of Uranus to Mercury kicked off by the Moon's square to her Ascendant. The Ascendant rules the physical body, and in each of the charts it's going to be a little bit different. Song's is the only Ascendant that was afflicted by the Uranus-natal Mercury transit, so she was the only one affected."

Betony blinked. Judy had seen that far more quickly than she.

Mikaela said, "I have just had a brilliant idea. You can get a chart for Prowl and Jazz, because we know the exact time each of them was re-sparked on Earth right here on base."

Judy said, "Wait a minute, let's ask them if they want to see their charts first. If they don't, it isn't our business."

Chromia's optics flickered slightly. "They said to go ahead, they'll come out in a few minutes to see the charts. Prowl is very skeptical, but Jazz thinks it will be fun."

Judy said, "OK. That was at the Halloween Party in '11, right? What time?"

"11:12 pm for Prowl and 11:15 pm for Jazz, Jazz says."

"That's within four minutes, so it will be almost the exact same chart. The numerical degree of the Ascendant might change from one to the next, but that'll be the only difference."

"How can two such different people have the exact same chart?" Sarah Lennox asked.

Judy said, "Every person has free choice as to how he or she will use the potentials the chart reveals. I've had the idea for a long time that Jazz and Prowl feel the same way about their professional responsibilities, but choose to honor them very differently."

"They're sparkmates," Chromia said. "Maybe you should base sparkmates' charts on the time they bonded? It changes the entire rest of your life as much as being born does."

Betony said, "You could use that information to draw a relationship chart. That chart shows only the course of the relationship for humans, but in the case of sparkmates, that _is_ the course of the individuals' lives."

Judy had finished drawing up the charts by the time the door to Prowl's office opened. She emailed the charts to the two bots as they crossed the atrium.

Jazz said, "Had my fortune told by an oil slick diviner in a bazaar one time. He told me I was gonna meet a tall dark stranger. Well, Prowler here was taller than me at the time, and if you define 'met' as 'got busted by,' yeah."

Flareup said, "I want to hear the rest of that story."

Jazz grinned. "'Course you do. You're old enough yer wants won't hurt ya."

Once the merriment died down, Judy interpreted the chart with a fond smile for both of them, ending with, "This chart doesn't indicate any kind of great destiny."

"Thank Primus!" Jazz burst out.

Judy smiled at him and went on, "It's the chart of a regular person who is free to make a life - in your case, together - and be happy."

Betony seconded her opinion, which made Judy's cheeks glow with pride.

Prowl said, "I find it difficult to accept that my life depends on the position of the stars. Our lives are as Primus and our own choices have decreed. That said, if this is in fact our destiny, I will be a very contented mech."

Sideswipe, whose tolerance for his own highgrade was not as great as he thought, pointed out that they knew the exact time OP was returned to life, on Earth.

Chromia paused for an instant, not a simple case of hitting the pause button but a frozen moment of pain, and then in a voice as featureless as a sheet of ice, gave them a date, a time, a set of coordinates. Judy, looking at her, wished she had never brought up the subject of the stars and their influence, but took down the data.

Arcee gestured Sides to her, and as he bent down, she administered a belt to the side of the head that nearly took the tall front-liner off his skates. He staggered, recovered. ::What the heck was that for?:: he sent, aggrieved.

::Being an insensitive aft!:: she sent.

Silence across the link. Then Sides sent, ::Yeah. I'd apologize to Chromia, but that would make it worse.::

The door to Optimus' office opened with a bang, and he walked straight to Chromia, picked her up, and held her spark-to-spark, his cheekplate down on the top of her head.

Silence stretched out around mother and son. The others present turned away, not from fear or awkwardness, but because some forms of solace are too sacred to interrupt.

Judy bent her head to her tablet, and thumbed in the data. Aware of Betony coming to look over her shoulder, she tilted the screen to share the information. Betony finished her punch, and crumpled up her paper cup.

The program chugged through the calculations and the chart appeared on the screen. Judy felt the nicer effects of alcohol vacate _far_ too soon, leaving her cold and shaky and totally sober. Behind her, Betony's cup hit the floor.

"Okay, that makes it official," Mikaela said with a grin. "You have to explain it now."

Judy said, "Betony, please do this. A chart like this is...something you see once in a lifetime, if that. I really don't know enough."

"You might surprise yourself," Betony said, smiling at her, "but sure."

She ran down the points, reducing them to everyday language. The Sun in helpful aspect to a conjunction of Neptune, Jupiter, and Chiron: the healer, the mystic, and the ruler joined to the essence of being. Saturn in the sixth house: a gigantic life-task, never ending even as each task was completed. Uranus on the Ascendant, and what better indicator could there be of an unusual "birth"? The mech had been resurrected from the dead, after all. Pluto hugging the Midheaven: a career of remaking, from the ground up, all aspects of the public life.

No one laughed. All too true to be funny.

But Chiron conjunct Neptune…"Look," Judy said, pointing it out. "I don't know how to interpret that."

Betony said, "I really don't either. The principle of healing joined to that of self-sacrifice."

"I do," Chromia said tartly, moving to Optimus' side as he set her down. "Before - that - happened, Optimus was always too ready to sacrifice himself." She looked up at her tall son. "You'd still do that, if the gain to your people was great enough. But now you'd debate long and hard before you did it."

Prowl said, "And I hope you'd debate it with us, Prime, because we would do all we could to dissuade you."

"Aye to that," Diarwen said, in a tone that made it quite clear she might do a bit more than debate.

Optimus looked at them all, and smiled. "If I had to make that decision," he said, "it is unlikely to be implemented anywhere but on a battlefield. We no longer have the daily expectation of battle, for which I thank Primus. A different kind of 'hard work' is now before all Cybertronians."

And after that truth, what was left to be said?

Sarah broke the silence a few minutes later. "Let's finish our snacks, and clean up, shall we? The kids'll be out of school in another hour."

The bots, being persons of common sense, finished their oil cakes first (Optimus, who had done none of the work, got away with one before Chromia slapped his servo). The humans tended to do a little work then have a little snack, rinse with a bit of chat, repeat. Nevertheless, in thirty-five minutes the atrium was shorn of its ends of garland and other detritus, and gleamed in welcome.

Judy, still shaken, sat down.

The other women glanced at her in concern as they set out the children's snacks, and Flareup and Arcee carried in a cooler of milk and juice. But Judy said, "I'm fine. It's just - I've never seen anything like Optimus' chart. And I don't think I believed in astrology until now. I was happy to play with it. But it's really true, and I-I wasn't ready for that."

Betony smiled at her new-found friend. She'd had the same experience with Tarot. And in Diarwen she'd had a teacher, someone to safeguard her against dabbling beyond her understanding; Judy had no one to do that for her. She land a gentle hand on Judy's shoulder, grounding her, and said, "I know it was a shock, but you did good."

A weary smile crossed Judy's face. Betony gave her a piece of paper, folded small, that proved to contain an email address and a phone number, and written small below them the message, "If you want to talk about astrology, call or email me, okay? Betony."

Judy smiled more widely and put the paper in her purse.

The door banged again as Ron arrived, with Danny in the crook of one arm, two bags in the other, Sam trailing with two very plump bags in each hand, and Bee bringing up the rear, four bags in one hand and six in the other. "Good heavens!" Carly said, taking her son. "Did you buy out the store?"

"Three of them!" Sam said with pride. "Hello, everybody!"

Carly refrained from rolling her eyes. "Did you buy any clothes for Danny?" she said, which was a reasonable question, as that had been the only content of the list she entrusted to her spouse, her spouse's Guardian, and her father-in-law.

Ron gave her one bag with one hand, and with the other accepted the punch Diarwen offered him (no additive; she knew he had to drive). In it lay two each of all the items Carly had asked for, and two more in the next size up. "Good heavens!" she said. "You've done an excellent job, all of you! Thank you, Ron, thank you so much, Bee, and thank you, Sam!"

Bee channelled a muffled crowd cheer, the junior Witwickys said their goodbyes, and the little family left together.

Ron looked at Judy. "I wonder what she'll think when she finds the train sets we bought for Brains and Wheelie?" he said.

Judy Witwicky looked back at the man in her life. "It will be a nice Christmas present."

Ron snorted. "The big bags, three of 'em, will be a nice Christmas present. Track extensions, more cars, bridges, and tunnels. The basic sets, that they get to play with now. Two trains and two sets of tracks."

Judy cocked her head. "And how much did all of this cost us?"

"Uh. Well, half of our Christmas budget, and half of theirs."

Judy had been married too long to roll her eyes. But it was close.

"Hey," Ron said. "I nixed one of those garden trains."

A genial soul to those who knew him, Ron stayed long enough to pass words with every person there, bot or human, and then declared himself ready to leave. They walked back to their car, three bags still dangling from Ron's wrist.

"You're awfully quiet," he observed.

"I got a shock at the party," Judy said. "I've been fooling around with astrology-you knew that."

"Sure," said Mr. Just-Found-Out-I'm-a-Sagittarius-with-Aquarius-Rising-and-a-Cancer-Moon.

"Well, at the party, it scared the daylights out of me, Ron. I thought it was just something to play with, you know? It isn't. It's as real as it can be."

Her husband took her hand as they reached the car. "I'm not surprised, Judy."

She was. She blinked at him. "Why not?"

He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, leaning one hip against the car. "When you get involved with a new subject, you really go all-out in your study of it. Then you hit the point where you realize that you don't have any talent for it. You may have a talent for astrology, but you won't know until you get a teacher. Was tonight the call to do that?"

Judy remembered a certain piece of paper with a phone number and an email on it, and smiled. "Yes. I think it might have been."


End file.
